In a positive development, the Reserve Bank of India has announced that visitors of India will get access to UPI for digital transactions.
For now, the UPI facility has been opened for visitors from G20 countries.
Foreign Visitors To Be Given Access To UPI: RBI Governor
According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, foreigners visiting India will be able to use the UPI or Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to make purchases there.
As per reports, UPI payments will initially only be available to visitors from G-20 nations and only to those flying into specific airports.
As per Das, “UPI has become hugely popular for retail digital payments in India. It is now proposed to permit all inbound travellers to India to use UPI for their merchant payments (P2M) while they are in the country. To begin with, this facility will be extended to travellers from G-20 countries arriving at select international airports.”
Foreign delegates have been invited to many events in India since it is hosting the G-20 until November.
UPI Transactions On a Rise in India
In India, UPI is a widely used tool for online payments. The number of UPI transactions has significantly increased over the last six years. UPI transactions reached a record high of 12.82 lakh crore in December.
The government revealed last month that Indians living abroad would be able to use their international mobile numbers to access UPI.
Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in ten countries can use UPI services without relying on their India phone number for transactions. Singapore, the US, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the UK are the nations in question.
The National Payments Corporation of India claims that accounts like NRE/NRO (Non Resident External and Non Resident Ordinary) can conduct UPI transactions using international mobile numbers.
NRIs can manage their income earned in India with the help of an NRO account, while they can transfer their earnings from abroad to India with an NRE account.
